When it comes to furthering your project management career, a well written professional CV is essential. Former recruiter Shilpa Nayyer shares five key things that employers and recruiters look for in project manager CVs.

The next generation of project managers will not always tread a well-worn path from disciplines such as construction/engineering and IT/software as industries such as finance, health and design become thirsty for project managers. Deborah Singerman on why a diverse range of skills and experience is perfect for a project management career.

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This paper is using a case study to analyse how a project team can improve their performance through tacit knowledge sharing. The project owner is a network trying to promote collaboration between media industry students, professors and professionals as well as cross-media collaboration. The project team consisted of students and professors from different universities’ media degrees. The project scope was to report (in form of articles and video interviews) from a festival that brings together high profile professionals working in the media industry of Germany. Through performance appraisal, a knowledge gap between the team members’ actual and optimal performance was identified. The need for performance improvement was thereby established, for which the team had about three weeks to accomplish. The approach of the project team was to train members through workshops, practice runs and a group trip. The topic of knowledge management is explored in order to understand how it impacts on performance improvement. By analysing different types of knowledge (i.e. explicit and tacit knowledge) and knowledge creation it is established that creating and transferring tacit knowledge was a top priority for this project. Tacit knowledge being internal, hard to articulate and therefore hard to transfer is analysed in regards to enabling factors. It is found that interpersonal interaction and trust are crucial factors for tacit knowledge sharing. Trust being enabled by common goals, information sharing, frequent social interaction and emotional bonds is explored. During the analysis, it is demonstrated how the project’s approach was providing these enabling factors of tacit knowledge sharing and trust, and thereby improved the team’s performance.

It comes as no surprise that people have different learning styles and for the better part, it is presumably safe to state that learning styles are merely instruments to categorise different learning traits, processes and behaviours, which in turn, assist people to learn. Because learning styles has not proven any universally accepted models, it continually remains one of the most talked about and debated topics among educators and managers in the business environment. This theoretical paper aims to examine the validity of learning styles in today’s business domain, drawing specifically on the 13 families of learning style models outlined by Coffield, et al, (2004) with the purpose to stimulate debate on whether they warrant any business soundness in its principles or are they just inflated drivel. This paper does not claim that learning styles are fictionalised by their respective authors but rather to shed light if the values of their researches can be bunked, if proven to be hogwash.

The importance of effective knowledge management and conversion: A reflective paper drawing on lessons learnt from a case example

This paper highlights the challenges projects can face when there is not sufficient monitoring, planning and action taken regarding knowledge management and conversion. Explicit knowledge is seldom enough in the project management arena and tacit knowledge is also required for optimum performance. Tacit knowledge comes from a combination of experience, values, context and intuition and is not easily or readily shared. This paper uses a case example to highlight project setbacks and barriers experienced when important tacit knowledge is not effectively harnessed, converted and shared amongst the project team. Reflecting on the case example, the lessons learnt and actions taken, provides examples of how projects with knowledge conversion issues can overcome the barriers and improve performance. The paper discusses the complexities of power, insecurity and trust when it comes to harnessing and sharing knowledge and ways to address this. It explores a systematic and deliberate way to effectively manage knowledge, drawing on models and processes such as the SECI Knowledge Conversion Process. The paper concludes by discussing the advantages and disadvantages of knowledge management and conversion in projects, acknowledging that despite challenges a focus on these processes ultimately leads to performance improvement and increased project success.

Why do projects not succeed when project governance is not formalised?

Barriers exist at both the project and organisational level. These barriers influence the organisation’s aptitude to successfully implement and execute projects, as well as the overall performance and market penetration of the organisation. This paper aims to critically reflect upon the current barriers at the project and organisational level within a large Australian financial services organisation. The reflection identifies three key barriers at the project and organisational level concerning the lack of: formal project-based structure; project methodology familiarity and skilled project managers; and open dialogue prohibiting collaboration. Moreover, this reflective practice has allowed recommendations to be made to adjust governance structures to improve project performance and progress towards achieving organisation objectives. A new governance structure is recommended in pursuit of: implementing a formal project-based structure, embodying support from a Strategic PMO to bring accountabilities and opportunities amidst the organisation into line; aiding better education and appreciation of project management methodology with ongoing support from a Tactical PMO; and adopting effective communication. Thus, the paper outlines the importance of these recommendations to assure project governance ownership and liability across the organisation to achieve project success.

This study is focused on the importance of performance measurement in projects. Projects are considered as temporary organizations with specific goals and objectives. Generally, power plant projects are considered as high-tech and large-scale projects and construction of them require a great amount of financial resource, human resource, materials and equipment. Also, they are considered as one of the strategic infrastructures of a country and any delay in these kinds of projects results in huge cost overrun as well as negative social and economic impacts. So, it is important to use a robust performance measurement system to help project managers to manage them effectively to achieve goals and objectives of projects. In this study, by using literature, a conceptual model of performance measurement was developed and then by using the company vision, the KRAs of the project were identified. Also, according to the project contract, the long-term and short term objectives were identified. To assess the performance of process and systems a set of KPIs identified.

The next generation of project managers will not always tread a well-worn path from disciplines such as construction/engineering and IT/software as industries such as finance, health and design become thirsty for project managers. Deborah Singerman on why a diverse range of skills and experience is perfect for a project management career.